


Where did it all go wrong?

by Sheria2013



Category: Trainspotting (Movies), Trainspotting Series - Irvine Welsh
Genre: 4st 7lb to be specific, Anorexia, Eating Disorders, I regret my entire life, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, MSP references I guess?, Mark's POV, Other, POV First Person, mentions of episodes from the books, mostly in brotp, sickrent if you squint, very influenced by MSP songs anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-08 10:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12862293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheria2013/pseuds/Sheria2013
Summary: An AU where instead taking heroin in the university Mark stops eating.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I here it is, and I regret my entire life. First of all, this is the first fanfic I've ever written. English is not my first language and it is un-betaed, so please be forgiving. Not written in scottish dialect, I'll probably rewrite it later. Feedback is very appreciated.  
> I really got into Trainspotting book series, and one of the episodes from the book reminded me of Richey Edwards and his way of thinking, so it had to be done.
> 
> Manic Street Preachers - 4st 7lb and Pompeii - Numbers work as a soundtrack I guess

I’m almost mesmerized, watching Keezbo moving on the dance floor, not feeling up to going there myself. My head’s spinning, I’ve never been a lightweight but now it seems like the smallest dose of alcohol gets me drunk. I don’t mind it, though, a bottle of vodka now and then helps my sleeping since I sometimes have troubles with it.

I can’t believe lads like him are not ashamed of themselves and still manage to pull birds. I’ve been told all my life that that I’m one skinny cunt, but looking back, it seems to me like I was about the same size. I can’t help shuddering at the thought of that and finish my drink, feeling like I’m about to vomit, so I get up, swaying a bit.

No chance of getting out, though.

Sick Boy crushes right next to me, pulling me back and shouting into my ear:

\- What are you up to, Rent Boy? The night’s only starting! There are two lassies up there, so if I don’t manage to pull a threesome, I might introduce one of them to you. I’ll have the most attractive one, of course, but it’ll do you good to shag someone once in a while.

I smirk and try to get away from his grip. Loads of good it would do me, considering that I can’t get my cock erect anymore. Sometimes it seems like I don’t even have the strength to get up in the morning, let alone satisfy any bird who would fancy me.

It doesn’t work, though. He frowns when his hand traces my ribs on accident. 

\- Fuck me, you really are getting skinny, aren’t you? What’s up with that, is it because of that vegetarian nonsense or have you taken up to the skag diet as well?

I smile weakly, finally managing to pull away and stand up. My speech’s a bit slurred and I feel like I’m about to faint, so it’s really the time for me to go home. 

\- Nah, probably just vegetarianism ‘n all, trying to get used to it. No way I’m stuffing my veins with that shite. 

It started as the vegetarianism at the uni, because I put on a bit of weight there, sitting in the library with books all day and hardly moving at all. I thought that the diet would do me good, besides, I loathed the taste of meat. I don’t give a fuck about animals.

Now it seems like I loathe the taste of everything except for an occasional cup of tea or a glass – a bottle – of alcohol. I have to eat something once in a few days, can’t have us fainting in front of everyone, eh? It’s a torture every fucking time, but it needs to be done.

\- Oh well, do what you want, Rents. But don’t get carried away with it, y'know? Lassies like a bit of muscle on guys. Don’t wait up!

He winks at me and gets up, strolling to the girls he’s been pointing at. 

I need to sleep. My head’s pounding and spinning, and I can’t stop shaking – it’s cold all the time. I really look like I’ve been using heroin, with the dark circles under my eyes, shaking limbs and frame, which seems to get skinnier every day.

Or so my parents say. I can’t see it. I can’t feel it. My jeans barely stay on me, sliding off my hips, but I just don’t feel thinner in any other way. My parents are worried that I’m using, considering that “Young Simon had a wee experimentation, did you take it more seriously, Mark?”

“Young Simon” has been clean for weeks. He said that he can’t allow junk affect his sex drive, so he preferred cold turkey to impotency.

Lucky cunt

It’s an addiction in some way, I suppose. Sometimes, when I catch the sight of myself in the mirror and see my bones protruding, I seem to get the rush of dopamine, feeling truly euphoric – it’s working. All this pain is paying off. 

If I dare to look more closely, it seems like nothing changed.

I can’t give it up. Besides, it’s not like heroin addiction at all, is it? It’s about getting cleaner, not poisoning myself. It’s about getting better, purer, more good-looking.

Who am I kidding.

It’s all about discipline and misery. 

No way I’m becoming fat again, ever.


	2. Chapter 2

\- Wake up, for fuck’s sake!

I groan and raise my hand to my eyes, shielding them from the bright daylight, which makes my eyes water. What?.. What time is it?

Sick Boy’s standing above me, tugging the blanket from me, which I’m reluctant to give away. I swear to god, moving in with this bastard for the sake of saving money was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. Still living with my parents would be even worse though, so I’m not in a position to complain.

Will that cunt give it up? I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to give the only source of warmth I have, considering that my body doesn’t seem to provide any heat and none of my clothes can keep me warm.

-Wake! The fuck! Up! Mark, we are supposed to meet the lads in the pub in half an hour, pull yourself together! 

It’s dangerous to keep Begbie waiting, so I get up with a groan and hastily start pulling on my clothes. Si’s gaze seems to linger on me… Fuck!

He hates fat people, that’s for sure. He used to be chubby as a child, and I know how much pain the other kids caused him because of his weight – he used to cry about it when we were in primary school. 

Puberty did him good and he made sure to make a humiliating comment anytime he could about “people heading to Fat Hell” (in his own words), as if trying to distance himself from his less cooler self, reluctant to admit that there was any time in his life when he could be considered a loser – not Simon David Williamson, the self-styled Scots-Italian Renaissance man.

It’s not like he would have any pity for his pathetic mates. I pull on the t-shirt as quick as I can and head to the bathroom, trying not to quiver too much, both cold-cold-so-fucking-cold and terrified out of my mind.

He saw me. He saw how I look. Mind you, I was okay with it before – it’s not like he didn’t see me without my clothes before, after all, we live together. For god’s sake, we even wanked in the same room when we were younger – also a chapter from our youth which he prefers to ignore – but now it’s different.

He loathes fat people. He’ll give me hell about my body, and I hate myself enough for now.

I turn around to look at him, expecting to see him disgusted, but he looked… Concerned? You don’t see Sick Boy worried – he doesn’t worry about anything or anyone, and that almost scares me. What can he be concerned about? 

In a second the worried look turns into a smile and he sneers, showing his teeth in a toothy grin:

\- Rents, are you sure you don’t want to start eating meat again? If you keep up with it, any bird’ll crush you! 

He snickers again and looks at me with interest, while I’m doing my best not wrap my hands around me, hiding myself from his eyes.

Please don’t make fun of me.

It’s bad enough as it is. 

\- You look good though, lost some of that weight from the uni times, eh? C’mon, lads are waiting!

I don’t know if I’m relieved or want to kill myself right now – probably both. He acknowledged the weight loss. I don’t see it, I don’t feel it, I don’t trust my parents, since they always fuss over me, but Sick Boy… If he noticed it, there must be some result. 

He’s not worried – of course he’s not, why should he be? I don’t look like I’m on the brink of starvation. 

Like he used to. 

I remember what he looked like on a skag diet – half a man, half a corpse, all bony and wiry, unhealthily skinny… And God knows how I **envied** him at that time, even if I was really, really scared for him, but I couldn’t help myself. I know how he got there, how much misery it caused him and still I couldn’t help glancing at his bony frame when he got out of his suffocating suits, reluctant to wear anything else and acknowledging his state. I fucking envied the man who was dying. There is something infinitely sick about this. 

It took him no time to put on the healthy weight and get his muscles back, considering that he stayed off drugs, except for occasional E’s and Whizz. He’s as handsome as ever, while I.. 

Well, at least I’m a bit thinner. Or so he says.

I’ll just have to keep going till I reach my goal – to be able to live in this body, in my body, and not feel like I’m suffocating under its weight.


	3. Chapter 3

It started as a way to get some control over my life.

 

I was in a new town, in a new place, with new responsibilities. My brother just died, and although I didn’t feel much because of it, my parents were devastated and I saw their misery. My mates were becoming drug addicts and I couldn’t do anything about it – what could I do, with allthe chances I had, while they were stuck in Leith without any future ahead of them? I felt lost, confused, infinitely angry -  at myself for feeling this way, at the world, which was fucked up beyond any measure, at every single person who contributed to this bloody mess.

 

And then I felt my jeans becoming smaller on me. It worked like an alarm clock.

 

It felt so _easy_ at first. Controlling my ration didn’t leave place for anything except the most necessary tasks. Wake up, go for a run, go to the lectures, do your homework, go to the gym, finish the homework, go to sleep, repeat. From time to time I would skip meals due to the amount of homework I had. When I discovered that it helped to lose weight faster, I started starving myself for one of two days in a row. And it was marvelous, fucking incredible, I never felt more focused and even happy in some way than on those days. I had control over something.

I could make myself better. I could control this bloody awful body, exercising my willpower.

 

Periods of starvation started to last for a longer time – from one day to a week, to a week and a half,  to almost a month. And how I hated myself when I had to break this pattern. I felt bloated and disgusting whenever I had to eat anything, even if I made an effort to stick to low-calorie food. I started to have nightmares – and that if I could fall asleep, because most of the nights I just lay in bed with my stomach churning and my head spinning, my muscles always tense and hurting because of the workouts. I couldn’t sleep, so I started drinking before going to bed, falling into a deep alcoholic sleep, not dreaming of anything. Alcohol tends to cause weight gain, and since it was my only cure for insomnia, it became even easier to talk myself out of eating.

 

Who could know that it was all for nothing.

 

I dropped out of the university because I had nervous breakdowns over any marks lower than 80%, which started to appear more often, since it became difficult for me to think straight most of the time – my mind seemed to be constantly fuzzy and sleepy. It was fucking pointless anyway – what would a guy with History degree do for a living? The lack of pressure didn’t do me any good – in fact, everything became much, much worse. Insomnia and inability to eat didn’t go anywhere, and there was nothing to do, absolutely nothing. Most of the time I juststayed in the flat reading. I dropped Literature after the first course because nothing makes you hate some books more than analyzing every word in them, but I still had a great interest in literature and philosophy.

 

So here I am, Mark Renton, a failure, a drop-out, sitting with my mates and being unable to understand anything of they are saying. It’s like I blank out everything on the outside – I just can’t focus on what the others are saying. It’s not so hard with Begbie – all you have to do to communicate with him is to nod sometimes during his stories and not look too daring or doubting. It’s harder to fool Spud and Sick Boy - I really have to concentrate and make an effort.

 

I used to be the one with the future ahead of me. Almost like Tommy, except I was not that virtuous. Things change. Tommy started taking heroin because of his breakup with Lizzy and no one knows how long he has left, being HIV-positive in terrible living conditions. I fucked up my life and feel as good as a living dead.

 

I can’t fucking think. Begbie is saying my name, so I really have to snap out of it.

 

 - What the fuck do you want?

 

 - For fuck’s sake, Rents, pay attention! I was just saying that we’re getting Full English breakfast for everyone, you in?

 

**NO**

No, I can’t.

 

It’s fine to drink with my mates, even though I’m a lightweight and they mock me relentlessly for it.  But eating in front of everyone – and a fry-up, no less, is pretty much impossible for me now. Not that I could – I’m still a bit hung-over and sleepy and I would probably just throw up the food.

 

 - Nah, Franco, not for me. Had a bit too much to drink last night, can’t even look at the food. In fact, I’ll probably get going – there’s no use for me now.

 

I rise and walk away, not giving him a chance to reply. But before I open the door and leave, I turn to nod the lads goodbye and meet Sick Boy’s suspicious gaze.

 

What the fuck’s he concerned about?


End file.
